A History of Pilling by Frank Lowe

The Pilling area has been inhabited since the Neolithic times. Finds of stone age flint and stone axes, bronze spears and Saxon beads have been found all around Pilling. It is also certain the Romans passed the area. In this area of Lancashire called Amounderness (it is said it's place names, especially north of the lower Fylde, are of Viking origins). Amounderness itself may be Norse, possibly translated as; Agmundr being a chieftain, it means Agmundr's promontory. Those who know better than me (educated folk!) discuss and argue about how place names derive.

Our Jenkinson roots are in Eagland Hill, which is thought derives from the Norse Eiki Lundr, meaning oak grove - a Lund was a sacred grove where pagan rites were carried out. There are several theories of where the name of Pilling derives from. One says "from a diminutive of the Olde British word pyl meaning a pool". Another says "English (Lancashire): topographic name from Old English piling;dweller by the stake; or pylling;dweller by the stream;". Yet another claims "Pilling is derived from Celtic Pyll meaning a creek and ing a diminutive".

Pilling was bound to the monks of Cockersand Abbey, which was founded near Cockerham in 1192; remains of which can still be seen today. It was an isolated, boggy marsh area cut off from the rest of England and inhabited by people who were self sufficient, hardy and mainly farmers. In his book "A history of Pilling", F.J.Sobee, a village schoolmaster of Pilling, commented "Pilling must have been just a few huts in the 27,000 acres of waste, moss and marsh, with a small coastal strip. Communication, apart from one or two tracks, across the bog, with the outside world, would be difficult.

Indeed until 1780, the only road was from Cockerham, along the shore and on to Pilling Lane. 1720 was the year of one of Pilling's great floods. It arose on Sunday and Monday of the 18th and 19th of December. In a petition for help signed by 11 members of the Pilling community, the winds were described as "a dreadful tempest". It overflowed 1,500 acres of land destroying most of the wheat and rye that had been sown, together with 40 houses. According to the diary of a William Stout, 8 lives were lost in Thornham Moss and "it remained like a sea for four days" and in Pilling, Meols and Marton Mere 10 people drowned. Other recorded high tides & flooding were in 1883, 1907 & 1927. Pilling flooded more recently in the 1970's.

Homes were built of peat or clay and heather mixed in. Some used cobblestones and a few were crux built (leaning two tree trucks together and putting the ridge pole between the two ends). The sides were built up with branches and covered in clay. The floors were made of clay and usually covered by rushes. (They were using rushes to cover the floor of the old chapel around 1822, at the cost of 10/- or 50p in today's money).

These were the days of candles, peat for fires, lamps and wells. The Rev J.D. Bannister said of Eagland Hill in 1869, "This extensive tract of bog-land, which had been at the start of the century, not merely unprofitable, but in reality a poison bog, diffusing miasma, ague and low fever among the surrounding population". Miasma means: Noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere. and the meaning of Ague is: a malarial fever characterized by regularly returning paroxysms, marked by successive cold, hot, and sweating fits. It takes a brave family that will risk everything to conquer such a place. It is amazing to realise that it wasn't until 1931 that piped water was brought to the village, electricity didn't come in until 1936.

St John the Baptist Church is said to have its origins in Saxon times. It was located near a place called Newers Wood by Stake Pool. On a map of 1577 it is shown a little distance from Pilling Hall. There is very little left of it, as it's stones were used in the next chapel to be built and there are a few in Pilling Hall Farm. There remains just one grave stone to Richard, son of Christopher Clark who was buried 10th of February 1720, surely one of the last souls to rest in the original grounds.

As the area grew, a new and bigger chapel was definitely needed. On the next chapel, above the door (now called the old chapel by Pillingers), it's keystone bears the year of 1717. It was consecrated in 1721 and it is one of the finest examples of a Georgian church in existence. This is the period of the reign of King George II, with Robert Walpole becoming Great Britain's first Prime Minister.

From 1813 onwards, Eagland Hill became habitable due to the magnificent efforts of Eagland Hill pioneers, James Jenkinson (known as Owd Jemmy) and Joseph Hoyles. They were the people who helped drained Pilling Moss and brought their families up by shear hard work, grit and determination. Owd Jemmy had married in Churchtown near Garstang in 1808. He walked all the way from Churchtown, near Garstang, every night after he had finished work, and built his cottage from clay, which he carried a basket-load at a time from the nearest source. Even as the crow flies that's over three miles and it is doubtful they were anything more that tracks then. It is recorded that on August 20th 1835 the shock of an 4.4 earthquake was felt in Lancaster, Kendal, Garstang, Pilling, Poulton, Kirkham and Carleton. Owd Jemmy would have been just short of 50 at the time. I imagine the whole of Pilling would have remembered that for the rest of their lives.

Very soon the people of Pilling were filling the old chapel until it couldn't cope. In 1813, permission was given to take off the roof and build up the walls to put in an upper gallery. Despite this, Pilling was either growing at a huge rate or they were all God fearing folk and by 1861 it was agreed that the children should be kept in the school during the morning service to allow more room for the adults, plus the burial ground was so full they needed to extend that too. According to Gazetteer and Directory of England, Pilling population in 1861 was 1,388. The number of houses was 234. It said, "Much of the land is peat moss; and large quantities of turf are cut". It was so overcrowded that by 1887 they thought a new church had to be built. The last service in the old chapel attracted upwards of 400 people, the children being sent home to make room for the adults.

While this was going on, Eagland Hill needed its own church too. The Rev. J.D. Bannister was responsible for erecting St Mark's mission church. The foundation stone was laid by Owd Jemmy on 13th August 1869, the alter now standing where the fireplace was in Owd Jemmy's original cottage. After seeing his dream come true, Owd Jemmy died in the November of 1874.

It was around 1870 that things must have been changed for the farmers of Pilling. A single track line was built over the seven and a half miles to Garstang by the Pilling Railway Co. It began operations, mainly to support the local agricultural industry. From an exchange siding in the goods yard of the LNWR Garstang and Catterall station the line passed through Garstang itself, then Nateby and three small stations to the terminus at Pilling. There is some dispute about how it got it's name. One theory is the noise made by the engine on the curves was likened to the squealing of a pig and the other is the sound of its whistle. Which ever is true, all the trains on the line were thereafter known as 'the Pilling Pig' by the locals. One of the trains has been restored and can be seen at the entrance to Fold House Caravan Site, Pilling.

The line was operated (officially) on a one-engine-in-steam basis until 1908 and had no signals until the extension was built. The signals then installed were timber slotted post types. Goods yards at Garstang, Pilling and Knott End were usually well filled with farmers carts and it was not unusual for odd wagons to be dropped off along the line for loading with produce. As Birks Farm on Eagland Hill was about a mile & a half away, no doubt they took advantage of this facility. On the return journey these wagons were simply pushed ahead of the engine to the next goods yard.

In 1872, after well over a year of almost continuous use, the locomotive broke down. This caused a suspension of service, which in turn led to the company being in rent arrears. The locomotive was repossessed, and for the next three years only occasional horse-drawn trains were run. Goods services resumed in February 1875 using a new engine, Union. Passenger services followed in April. A replacement engine, Farmer's Friend, was acquired in December of that year.

A George Dickinson built the Ship Inn public house in 1782. He was a local man who became a sea captain sailing 'The Happy Return'. His death is recorded in the parish register as; "George Dickinson Yeoman Late Captain in the Africa Trade", this was perhaps a diplomatic way of saying he was a slave trader. He must have prospered, for when he retired from the sea he was able to build the Ship Inn and purchase both land and Hooles Farm. In the Inn yard there is an old cow tail pump with the initials of George Dickinson and Nancy his wife.

Formally attached to the North end of the Inn was the Village Smithy, owned by Joseph Danson. Access to the Inn yard was through an arched doorway. An upper room of the Smithy was used as Pilling's first Band Room. The Ship Inn is still there, now as a private house.

One of the "famous" people of Pilling, according to F.J.Sobee, was a certain William Thornton. It is claimed that he was presented to King George IV in his "birthday suit" as a perfect specimen of manhood in the British Army! What kind of madness is this? I wish I could find another reference to it. King George IV reigned from 1820 to 1830 and sure enough, there is a candidate suitable, William baptised in Pilling in 1801, son of John and Jane Thornton. I wonder if that period in the Royal history is so bizarre, that parading a soldier naked, is way down the list of interesting facts!

Another of Pilling's landmarks is its Windmill. Built in 1808, Pilling Mill, at Damside, Taylors Lane was built to replace a wooden post mill. It was 6 storeys high standing 73 feet with a second storey reefing stage and 4 sets of 6 foot mill stones. It is now a very attractive home in private hands.

There have been wind and water mills near this site for centuries. On a Yates map of 1786, there was another water Mill marked on the South side of the road. In 1886 it was converted to steam & the sails taken down. Robert Mather Cookson, one of the last corn millers at Damside, was born at the mill & was 7 years old when the sails were removed & used as gate posts at Birks Farm on Eagland Hill, the home of Owd Jemmy Jenkinson.